When The Red Fades
by HopieLuff
Summary: An insight into one Grell Sutcliff and his way of thinking.


London is at its best when it's in trauma. Like some great wounded beast, elegant and stubborn enough to patch up its wounds with sparse licks, it hobbles along and persists – and with every great, wounded beast, there must be a hunter. A wild, passionate hunter, living life at the edge, with thrills before breakfast and way past the appropriate times of the night.

Grell Sutcliffe is that hunter. A hunter, as Will would say, of the unskilled category. He'd push his glasses up with his scythe and give him his best withering look, and he'd reprimand him over his lack of respect for rules and his lack of obedience when it came to his work. All through the lecture, Grell would sit at his messy desk, and perch one knobbly knee over the other, and he'd listen. At the core of it, both of them knew that he didn't understand what he was listening to. It was an exercise simply to make Will look like he understood the reaper and what drove him to act the way he did.

Nobody understands him. As Grell straightens the crooked lapels to his suit, he acknowledges the fact that nobody will ever understand him, not unless he explains it himself – but how unladylike and romantic to do such a thing. An old-fashioned gentleman would look at him and simply iknow/i why he was the way he was, or better yet accept it without understanding. True, unconditional love could pass such mysteries, it was only human curiosities that couldn't. If just one man understood his love for the colour red, then it was enough.

Red was bright, beautiful, the colour with a thousand and one emotions tied to it. When he thought of red, he thought of poppies, littering a field turned crisp green with the coming of spring, he thought of kisses between lovers hidden by a corner, he thought of the angry husband jilted by his wife. Every thing that was beautiful, everything that gave strength, was a vibrant, beautiful, bold red.

When the red faded, there was nothing.

Oh, by no means was he a good lady! No, charity was for those who could afford it, and he was simply too overworked to make time for all the causes a woman in his position would have done. But he spread that red around – anger, hate, jealousy, love, passion – and he hoped that, even if he never found his Romeo, even if he was doomed to chase him, there would be people who found their Romeos and Juliets. Nothing gave a person strength like love... like red.

He'd been alone for far too long. The man he thought loved him was with another, a teenage boy without an ounce of experience in the bedroom; those virginal types kept men interested, after all, and he was past that. A scarlet woman, in every sense of the term; how dishonourable. It went against all the prudish rules and laws of Victorian England.

Closing his eyes, Grell laid back on a bed of cotton as soft as rose petals, and a pillow like marble pieces, and stared up at the drab canopy above his bed. William's voice swam through his head – useless reaper, useless person, useless, useless, useless. Thoughtfully, Grell brought his fingers up to his hair and separated a lock of it to twirl around his fingers. If he were useless, maybe he would never find his Romeo.

Tears pricked once at the corner of his eyes, and he shook them away; no, he would not cry, and he definitely would not lose hope! Somewhere out there... he'd find him somewhere. Either that, or Sebas-chan would come around, and he wouldn't have to deal with the grief of a broken heart. With this thought in mind, he drifted to sleep, and woke up refreshed and ready to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

It took three months before a rose finally appeared at his door – a month after Valentine's Day, but you couldn't have everything. He carried it inside, and set it down on the table, tempted to leave it as it was and record the memento of someone caring for him as pristine as it was now, but finally, the urge to see was too great. The ribbon fell away, the wrapping carefully plucked off, to reveal a single long-stemmed rose nestled on a bed of white satin.

The note underneath it was simply signed Undertaker. No romance. No declarations of love. Not even a kiss.

Still, he placed the rose in a vase, and fussed over the correct amount of water, and smiled for the rest of the day. Maybe his Romeo was a little slow... but at least he was there.


End file.
